EU Has No Plans For Ukraine

Dmytro Kublytsky, consultant at the International Center for Public Policy Studies, has thus commented the Ukraine-EU relations to The Day's Natalia VIKULINA: "Kyiv is not being invited to the European Union for several reasons. First, this country shows no apparent progress in carrying out successful market reforms. As is known, the EU is not a charitable organization; it does not need poor relations. Second, Ukraine still has problems with democratic transformations - this is what the Council of Europe always stresses. We can argue with this, but the criticism is noteworthy, and the European Union takes into account the Council's opinion. Thirdly, Ukraine only treats European integration as a foreign-policy factor. Integration in Europe has not become a unifying factor for the Ukrainian government, regional structures, or Ukrainian society as a whole. In general, it is too early to speak about a clear-cut EU policy toward Ukraine, for this organization's Kyiv-bound strategy is still in the making. Of course, we ourselves bear the lion's share of responsibility for Ukraine's too slow a movement toward Europe."

Negotiations with the countries constituting the first wave of EU expansion - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Estonia, Slovenia, and Cyprus - started as long ago as last fall. Five other nations are classified by the EU Commission as "less prepared politically and economically," although many diplomats have admitted privately that Slovakia, especially after the end of the Meciar era, looks much more economically advanced than not only Bulgaria or Rumania but even some first wave countries. In general, the EU Commission says that the differences in preparedness (in terms of legislation and the political situation) of various Central European states for EU membership are not fundamental.

No one fixes specific dates for the first candidates joining the EU; the expansion process is expected to last from 2003 to 2006. It is not yet known who and when exactly will become EU's first non-Western member. The Poles, in particular, are worried even today that their chances are becoming somewhat slimmer, as we happened to hear in Warsaw's corridors of power.

However, news from Brussels indicates by and large that most post-socialist countries today have problems absolutely different from ours. The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs likes to repeat that when EU association treaties were being signed with the present-day membership candidates, the situation in the latter was no better than in Ukraine today. In fact, nobody says categorically there are no double standards, but each of the eleven contenders for EU membership has not only been talking over the past ten years about the desire to integrate in the Union which incarnates, above all, a normal life. They have been carrying out unpopular economic reforms, drawing up clear-cut rules of political struggle, and bringing their law to European standards. They have had no internal disputes between Left and Right about whether to join Europe or unite with Russia. Even knowing that all this was, is, and will be taking place under the watchful eye of and with real assistance from the West, one feels that nobody has banned us from doing so at least for the past seven years. After all, Ukrainian diplomacy promised to work at least for EU associate membership, of course if local opponents do not hamper this. Moreover, our former fraternal countries have so far overtaken us only in the race for a place on the waiting list.